Ethyl cellulose (EC)/fullerene C-60 hybrid membranes were prepared for sulfur removal from gasoline. The effect of adding C-60 on desulfurization mechanism was investigated by the study of mass transfer behaviors of model gasoline components through membranes with different C-60 contents. The results showed that the transport mode of model gasoline components in membranes tended to Fickian diffusion. The increasing C-60 content did not change the transport mode of gasoline components in hybrid membranes, but severely increased the EC/C-60-thiophene interaction. Meanwhile, sorption and diffusion coefficients of thiophene, toluene, and cyclohexene increased with the increasing C-60 content, leading to the increase of the overall permeation coefficient of all the components, predicting that sulfur enrichment factor and permeation flux increased. The charge-transfer complex interaction between different gasoline components and fullerene C-60 was studied, and the change regularity of permeation flux and sulfur enrichment factor corresponded to the desulfurization mechanism that concluded on dynamic sorption curves. These were verified by pervaporation experimental results of membranes with different C-60 contents. In the condition of EC:C-60 = 1:0.007(mass ratio), higher sulfur enrichment factor (5.03) and permeation flux (2.73 kg/m(2) h) were obtained compared to the pure EC membrane (3.75, 0.70 kg/m(2) h), which further proved that the addition of C-60 could be helpful for the removal of sulfur from gasoline effectively. (c) 2012 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.